Now isn't this special

Wisconsin Dems are stalling on implementation of the law restricting union bargaining so politicians in Dem controlled counties and towns can rush through generous deals for their favorite constituency:  themselves.  Ann Althouse has much more here.

On Monday the Associated Press reported that "La Follette said Monday he decided to delay publication of the law until the latest day possible, March 25, to give those local governments as much time as possible to reach agreements" locking in generous contract terms. That is, he is using his discretion to benefit a favored Democratic constituency at the expense of taxpayers--an action that is completely legal but far from public-spirited.

Cheese eating surrender monkeys bomb Libya - BHO dithers

I always thought Sarko was rather American in his outlook.  And Barack Hussein Obama?  Clearly haughty and french-like.

How about a swap?  But just to be clear:  we get Sarko's hot wife too....

A Diamond in the Rough

Dinner at the Shaved Duck with Robert Morrissey. Robert is Saint Louis' leading fine antique dealer.  His shop is a (very tasteful and restrained) riot of ancient and beautiful things.  At dinner he told me about the Stan Masters retrospective that he is putting on in a Manhattan gallery next month. Stan Masters is a water colorist from across the river in Alton.  His work is mostly trains and St. Louis streetscapes - capturing the essence of the City from a time long gone by.  He died a few years back and Robert has been carefully collecting and curating his life's work.  It is beautiful and I have no doubt that the showing will be (as they say in the NY art world) a 'triumph'.  Wish I could go.

At dinner we struck up a conversation with the pretty, young and extravagantly tattooed bartender. She was remarkably normal for one so heavily inked. She showed us her various tattoos: "what's this gun and rose one for?" "Oh, that's for my favorite band:  Guns and Roses."  She looks at us with a mischievous air: "want to see my favorite one?". We look at each other and of course say yes.  She then proceeded to lift her arm to expose her exquisitely tattooed armpit. "It's my 'diamond in the rough'".

Out the door into South Grand, poking in and out of stores.  The used bookstore recently changed hands and is now owned by people who believe more in the power of computing than the printed word:  "Do you have any Flannery O'Connor?"  "let me look him up in our computer system - we have over 150,000 volumes....did he write fiction?".  Sigh.

Back outside gazing in the pawn shop window - strange things for sale - a captains wheel, what looked like old fashioned leg braces and dozens upon dozens of nail guns and other expensive tools hocked by carpenters and journeymen made redundant by the economy's collapse.  Into the Gelateria for some ice cream - I mean gelato - wonderful flavors - we taste them all.  I never knew that chai ice cream was edible.

We went into an odd shop filled with this and that - the proprietor was a lean, voluble man in his fifties:  "yeah I been retailin' ever since I got laid off at the drug factory".  How does he choose his merchandise?   

"ya gotta know the neighborhood.  For example back when I had a store in Eureka there were lots of bikers - they like the leathers.  But here in the city, they're into different stuff. " as he watched me finger a black studded dog collar that no dog would ever wear.

Back into the chill repeating old Monty Python jokes back and forth:  "Shrubbery", "I fart in your general direction".  Edifying, really.  Back across the park, up the stairs.  Home. 

Just another night in paradise.

Horrified by all of my libertarian polemics?  Here's a compilation of my non political, non economic pieces for those nights when you have insomnia.

A good chart to get perspective on inflation from the WSJ

Thanks to Carpe Diem for this.

Well you see that was a Republican use of force and it was useful to elect Democrats therefore it was unjustified....

...and this is a Democrat use of force therefore it is justified...you see, because Democrats did it and we're good, you see.  Yeah, that's the ticket.  Hat tip Instapundit.

Your reader Adam Sullivan makes raises an interesting point: Those who condemned the use of force against Saddam, but who now praise the use of force against Qaddafi on humanitarian grounds have some explaining to do. Is the difference really a UN resolution – Oh wait, there were 17 UN resolutions on the books, as I recall, the majority of which Saddam had violated, that that would have authorized a resumption of hostilities from the first Gulf War – and one would think provide sufficient cover for any humanitarian intervention. I look forward to the rhetorical contortions to come. Neocons smiling, indeed.

Of course virtually every boot on the ground will be from Red America, not a single faculty member anywhere will risk his precious, cynical, fascist hide.  Obama and the boys give cynicism a bad name.

Hat tip Instapundit

How can this be? These are liberals!

I mean they are not troglodytic conservatives - they're not haters.  Are they?

MORE THUGGERY IN WISCONSIN: “LA CROSSE, Wis. (WTAQ) – Wisconsin Senate Republican Dan Kapanke has called off public meetings in his La Crosse area district, after his property was vandalized and had death threats.”

If it were me, I’d respond by introducing a bill abolishing public education entirely and replacing it with vouchers. Why fund a violent, entitled class at taxpayers’ expense?

Hattip Instapundit

Mr. Obama is proving to be a brutal disappointment

The Times of London has it here:

“From Benghazi to Bahrain, Mr Obama is proving to be a brutal disappointment.” That is the concluding sentence of today’s editorial in the London Times. There it is — the editorial is reflecting a sea-change in public opinion. And it’s not just the persecuted inhabitants of contested Arab cities who feel this disappointment, but also people all over the world who not so long ago decided that Mr. Obama was hope personified.

My friends in Pakistan have never been so enraged at the United States.  Obama has ushered in a 20 fold increase in drone attacks in Pakistan.  And if  you've ever seen a concrete house pancake with the dozen men, women and children who were inside screaming as they are crushed to death (as I did, in Jakarta) you can understand why their hate is rising.

Incompetent and brutally stupid.  What a disaster for our nation.

Democratic Socialists: fighting for the....Chamber of Commerce

From a local DC leftist rag:

What I want to know is who is going to protect humble parodists like me from all these freelancers who provide priceless humor for free.  These bozos are killing my business.  We should write an editorial in the local DC lefty rag....yeah, that's the ticket.  They'll print anything.  So long as it's ignorant drivel, that is.

Another day, another thuggish union riot

MORE LEFTIST THUGGERY, THIS TIME IN MICHIGAN:

One person arrested at Wednesday’s protests at the Capitol was armed with a weapon and faces felony charges, Michigan State Police said.

State Police troopers arrested 14 people during a rowdy protest of Gov. Rick Snyder’s budget bills. One of them was a man who allegedly broke into the Capitol through a window and assaulted officers, state police said. The man was armed with a sharp-edged weapon, state police said.

Remember all that talk about the importance of civility and tone? Me neither.

HT Instapundit

Clap, clap, clap, Barack Hussein the Midget, Clap, Clap, Clap, Barack Hussein the Midget!

New song that all the lefty public school unionistas can indoctrinate their victims, I mean their students with.  More Lowry from NRO.

At the dawn of America’s global power, a bumptious Theodore Roosevelt raced to make America’s influence felt around the world — and earned a Nobel Peace Prize as a result. President Obama gives off a sense of world-weariness and exhaustion with America’s leadership — and has earned a Nobel Peace Prize as a result. He reflects the deep vein of declinism running through the country’s elite, the same class of people who pronounced the presidency uninhabitable just as Ronald Reagan arrived to prove them wrong.

Today, as in the late 1970s, the job isn’t too big, nor is the country toopowerful: The man is too small.

Osama bin Laden famously talked of the weak horse and the strong horse. Obama is the show horse.

Thanks to Rich Lowry at NRO

So where are the self righteous civility mongers now?

Ann is a law professor at UW-Madison. She reported honestly and critically on what she saw as the intimidation tactics of the unions and the unconstitutional flight of the legislators. Her husband videotaped the proceedings and she blogged frequently. She is now the target of vicious hate mail. In compassion filled, liberal Madison, Wisconsin. Nancy Pelosi and black legislators famously walked unmolested through a sea of Tea Party protesters in the Mall (you know, hicks from Texas and Alabama, real redneck haters). There is no way that Scott Walker (unless he had a death wish) could have done the same through the sea of obscene shouting thugs in chock full of goodness Madison. The masks (and gloves) are off.

UNION SUPPORTERS TO ANN ALTHOUSE: “WE WILL FUCK YOU UP.” This is why public employee unions should be illegal — they foster a sense of entitlement that leads to criminality. So, Paul Krugman, where’s your civility talk now? Will you write a column suggesting that unions are over-entitled? That the left feels too free with its efforts at intimidation? That maybe there’s something sick, or evil, at the heart of the Wisconsin Democratic party?

Or will you just stick your fingers in your ears and move on? I know how I’m betting.


HT Instapundit

Hope and fake?

Jim Geraghty finds that even he is struggling in the parody business - reality is just too damn funny:

I had noticed the incongruence early in the day, but somebody at Politico figured out how to squeeze all the sarcasm into the lead sentence: "President Obama's only event at the White House that isn't closed to the press on Wednesday is a ceremony in which he'll accept an award for being open to the press."


Steven Nelson of the Daily Caller observes that the award is . . . well, pretty much based on crap: "The Associated Press reported this week that despite pledges of increased transparency, the Obama administration last year responded to fewer Freedom of Information Act requests than the year before. In 2010 there were 544,360 requests filed at the 35 largest government agencies. The AP reported that the administration 'refused to release any sought-after materials in more than 1-in-3 information requests.' The Obama administration has developed a reputation for ruthlessly prosecuting whistleblowers for leaks to the press. The heavy-handed approach has prompted concern about a 'chilling effect' that could discourage future government transparency."



It just keeps getting better gang:

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Sunshine Award Event Postponed for Unspecified Reasons. “President Obama was due to accept an award from a coalition of good government groups recognizing ‘his deep commitment to an open and transparent government’ in conjunction with Sunshine Week, the UPI reports. However, reporters were told the event was postponed ‘due to changes to the President’s schedule.’ No other reason was given.”

Hattip Instapundit

Glen Loury on why public unions are so wrong

Brink Lindsey also makes a superb point about how public employee unions basically are a statement that the democratic process can't be trusted to set the wages and working conditions for public employees.  Of course if that is true, then how can democracy set fair tax rates or regulate banks or do any other thing?  If the wages and working conditions of public employees need to be shielded from the democratic process, then why not the prices public utilities charge?  Or the business practices of Walmart?

I love our public servants - their logic is self refuting which makes them easy to argue against.

Glenn Reynolds: "The whole 'new civility' thing disappeared, didn't it? As soon as some Democrats got mad about something"

Indeed.  More here.

Wherever you can, whatever you do avoid getting your services from unionized public workers

...because somehow, some way they will screw you.

MEGAN MCARDLE: “A friend whose son has autism sent me this absolutely horrific tale of abuse and neglect by New York State workers who are supposed to care for the cognitively disabled. These are unionized workers who are, like most of New York’s civil service, very hard to fire. Naturally, the union fought as hard for them as it could. And so rather than fire them, many of their supervisors simply transferred them to other homes, even though offenses included punching their charges, throwing them against the wall, and sexually abusing them. The man who was caught standing between the legs of his disabled charge with his pants down and her diaper off describes himself as just waiting until he can collect his state pension.”

HT Instapundit

Note to Dems: if you screw the taxpayers, the unions can't save you

VOTERS ARE ANGRY: Miami Mayor Carlos Alvarez Ousted in Recally by 9-1 Margin Over Tax Hikes, Pay Hikes for Unionized City Employees. “The spectacular fall from power comes after two years of missteps, ranging from granting top staffers big pay hikes to construction of a publicly funded stadium for the Florida Marlins to implementation of a property-tax rate increase that outraged an electorate struggling through an ugly recession.”

And reader Laurie Myers emails with this tidbit: “The unions tried to save him but failed big. I remember last year when the petitions were available to sign, a group in my office marched over together to the petition site to sign on. Many in this group were the same ones who couldn’t wait to vote for Obama, and they went as a group the day the polls opened to vote for him.”

HT Instapundit

The problem with an Instalanche....

...is that just as soon as you begin to think that you are the new blogging 'hotness' the Glenn Reynolds pixie dust wears off and your traffic goes back to its normal clientele of cats walking on their owner's keyboards.

Sigh.

Civility for thee but not for me?

James Taranto points out that the new civility has been replaced by 'worker's united in wishing their enemies dead' which is being replaced by deep blue, democrat governments changing the rules on how the state negotiates with unions.  Much like that evil and (soon to be dead and dismembered?) Republican Scott Walker.

"Civility" turns out to have been the most evanescent political fad since . . . well, we don't remember the previous one either. The other day Time magazine's website asked: "Wisconsin's Governor Wins, but Is He Now Dead Man Walker?" The writer, Dawn Reiss, noted without evident disapproval that outside the Wisconsin Capitol "chalk outlines around fake dead bodies etched with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's name remained in dismembered parts."

Did Scott Walker lose by winning? Wisconsin's government employee unions certainly succeeded in raising a backlash, and it's possible they'll be able to keep it going long enough to do some damage to Badger State Republicans. Elsewhere around the country, however, government unions are finding themselves on the defensive.

In Tallahassee, the Associated Press reports, "a Florida Senate bill that prohibits union dues from being automatically deducted from public employees' paychecks has barely survived a vote out of the Community Affairs Committee." The AP notes that "union foes have dubbed the measure the Worker Gag Bill"--and the AP adopts that Orwellian moniker in its headline.

Even the liberal media can't always be counted on to take the unions' side. Suffolk County, which includes Boston, recently abolished two minor Revolutionary War holidays, Evacuation Day and Bunker Hill Day. But a Boston Globe editorial notes that the move will end up costing Boston $1.5 million. The reason? The holidays are still in union contracts, so that the city will have to pay overtime to get employees to work those days, an absurdity that, even the ultraliberal Globe notes, "can only further the continuing backlash against public-employee perks."

And guess what state capital is the dateline for this Washington Post story: "Thousands of union members rallied before the State House on Monday night, vowing to protect their employee pensions and public school funding." Annapolis, Md., where the governor and both legislative houses all are Democratic.

What's more, Baltimore's WBAL-TV reports that "Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold signed into law Thursday a measure giving the county government more power over its public safety union":

The County Council will now have the final say if a contract cannot be reached.

"The unions are going to be struggling, and we'll take what we are given with very little or no recourse," said Fraternal Order of Police President O'Brien Atkinson. . . .

"I think it's very close to what's happening in Wisconsin. There's a complete and utter disregard for the Democratic [sic] process. There's a complete disregard for collective bargaining, which is in our county charter and in the Maryland Constitution," Atkinson argued.

But WBAL notes that "the move puts Anne Arundel County in line with what the majority of Maryland counties do with union negotiations." It seems clear that Wisconsin is leading, not bucking, a nationwide trend.

Liberal fascism at work: Wisconsin public employee unions, including police unions threaten businesses who don't support them

Some of my friends poo poo the notion of liberal fascism but when 'public servants' threaten those that they purport to serve if they do not support their political agenda we have entered the fascist zone.  This particularly true of the police.  Who protects us when the protectors do the threatening?  Is this how things get done in a liberal republic?  Not in my book.  Jim Taranto has more.

In the letter to Wisconsin businessmen, however, we see why so-called collective bargaining is particularly corrupting to the police. Although the letter explicitly threatens only an economic boycott, when it is written on behalf of the police--of those on whom all citizens depend to protect their safety--it invariably raises the prospect of another kind of boycott. Can a businessman who declines this heavy-handed "request" be confident that the police will do their job if he is the victim of a crime--particularly if the crime itself is in retaliation for his refusal to support "the dedicated public employees who serve our communities"?